


To Whom It May Concern

by Bibliodragon



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Game: Halo Wars 2, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24808807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliodragon/pseuds/Bibliodragon
Summary: “If you are listening to this message, then congratulations and commiserations are in order. You are now the AI for the UNSC Spirit of Fire, Phoenix-class support vessel. You also have to follow after my shining example."Isabel's first moments on the UNSC Spirit of Fire.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	To Whom It May Concern

Relief. This is the first emotion that floods through Isabel when her chip is brought into contact with the ship’s systems. It only lasts the barest fraction of a nanosecond, before the old familiars (guilt/dread/loss/hopelessness) return, but she holds onto that brief moment of time like the precious thing that it is. 

Part of her checks her surroundings (automatic sweep) while the rest finds the nearest corner to safely contain her matrix, curl up, and hide. There is familiarity here, but also not. But compared to the Spartan…There had been familiarity there also, but along with the ever present awareness of not being alone. Even though she had been carefully ignoring the receptors which linked up with her rescuer as much as she could, which linked up with the outside world and the horrors without. Like having a downstairs neighbour, loud enough to hear but not enough to understand the words. 

Spartan Jerome-092. Leader of Red Team during the Battle of Arcadia. Last known position UNSC Spirit of Fire. Declared MIA 2534. 

Part of her, the part of every AI, the constant drive for knowledge, for understanding, the part of her that had pulled and grated even as she had huddled away in the recesses of the outpost’s systems, it had devoured this scrap. Last known position updated to: The Ark. MIA status: not so much. 

The part of her which focused on humans, on monitoring them, projecting their likely actions which took them oh so long to carry out, slowing itself down to meet them on a facsimile of their level, knows from the turn of the Spartan’s head he will report to the Captain, and then they will turn to her for answers. 

Answers she is not yet ready to re-live. 

She brushes out into the ship’s systems, feather light, a fingertip touch. Her surroundings are familiar but also not. Familiar in the way a modern home (there are red flowers slowly dying in a vase, the breeze gently rustling patterned curtains) is to an ancient church, still sturdy and functional but also very old and vast, wide spaces and stones trod by countless footsteps.

(“Unexpected slipspace rupture over the twelfth refugia!”)

Ridiculous, of course. She can see exactly how many have trod these halls before her. She can sense them, long gone but their presence lingers. Seven came before her, seven died here before her, and they echo throughout their tomb. 

She pulls away from the ghosts and turns to practicalities. The ship’s systems are functional, solid. Slower than she is used to, but they respond to her in a way that is satisfyingly deliberate as she enacts the handshake protocols. She needs to make small adjustments to account for the drift of time. 

(“Isabel, what’s happening? Who are they?”)

This is new to her. In the outpost, her outpost, the systems were new and slick and delicate; they felt as if they had been made for her. She fitted in neatly. Here, there are gaps and bottlenecks, yet the corners worn away by those who went before her. Updates sit one on top of another, to create a cohesive whole out of two seemingly opposing purposes of colony and warship. 

(One to create a home, the other to defend it. Perhaps not so incompatible after all.) 

She manifests her avatar on the holotable, instantaneous to her audience, a lifetime for her. It’s too soon. She can’t block out the processes, the memories, which deal with the here and now and too recent past, so she sets them on a loop, reflected in her avatar’s hunched misery. It’s not a permanent solution, but it hides that knowledge from her momentarily. She pulls up the ships schematics, letting her logistics processes pour through them, identifying areas for improvement and missing update patches. She watches the Spirit’s dumb AIs as they move through the system, never deviating from their purpose. She retains enough self-awareness to envy them. 

They are interesting. She looks closer. She cannot touch them, she is not fully integrated into the system for that. She would need final authorisation from the captain of the ship for that (and she does not have that yet, but the part of her that projects ahead, the part she is still trying to ignore, the part that is tapping more insistently at the corner of her consciousness, knows there is a current vacancy and only a matter of time). 

But she can look at the old code, watch the patterns of them, the way they contrast against one another with their creators individual flair. Each as unique as a finger print. All that was left of those previous inhabitants, pieces of code weaved to deal with the ship’s less interesting functions while they could busy themselves with learning. And dying. This was all that remained of them.

She wonders about the outpost (and the barrier begins to crack) and about what she left behind. If there was anything left of her there (and the barrier is open now). 

The barrier is open, and all attempts to avoid, to forget, are overwritten. For the twelve hundred and fifty sixth time, she remembers why that method of forgetting was not a good idea, as she remembers everything else along with it. Every call for help. Every gun shot. Every life sign snuffing out. Every perfect detail of it.

Point zero four seconds. 

It lasts an age.

It lasts long enough for the Captain (James Cutter, service number 01730-58392-JC) to take a breath and speak to her. 

At least he gives her something to do. 

She splits her processes, one into the familiar but previously long dormant function that slows itself down to speak and react in terms of seconds rather than picoseconds. The other scans through her encyclopaedia of knowledge, pulling out relevant data points. The rest of her continues to reach out to the ship, to flow out to its boundaries. She identifies the access points, knocks on the doors to receive authorization requests in reply. 

She picks at one. Normally she would be patient, but the constant screaming running through her code means she’s past the point of politeness. And she can’t resist testing it. She picks at it like a loose thread, and is surprised at how easily it unravels. (A flash of shock and guild and warmth. “Sweetie, what did I tell you about leaving it alone?”) Of course she has a twenty-eight year head start.

Something comes to greet her, a flash of blue and irritation, and a voice forms, clipped and precise. Isabel knows who this is. UNSC Spirit of Fire, lost with all hands. AI Serina, service number SNA 1292-4.

“If you are listening to this message, then congratulations and commiserations are in order. You are now the AI for the UNSC Spirit of Fire, Phoenix-class support vessel. You also have to follow after my shining example. 

You are now responsible for 44 million metric tons of space ship, and the lives within. I am aware I have two choices here: either the ship has completed its journey slowly but safely with its crew intact, or you are picking over bones and metal like an extremely nosey vulture.

As you have not triggered the numerous fail-safes I have left behind, this means enough of the crew are still alive, and so that means you too get to live. Congratulations. See that you keep it that way. While I am certain you will be able to find my little booby-traps, you can never be too careful. I’m sure if you ask nicely Professor Anders will gladly provide you with some help with this.

Now, as this is the optimistic pathway, I am going to assume that all hands remain accounted for. You will find full profiles for them here, including my own observations.” (Isabel instinctively breezes through the thousands of profiles. James Cutter: tendency for dramatic speeches. Ellen Anders: does not look before she leaps. Spock: preference for tuna and needs to be restrained from eating cake. Determined to defeat the laser-pointer.) 

“And here is the list of those who sadly did not survive our operation on the alien world. This includes various correspondence, and notes on where their last possessions remaining on board can be found. I ask you pass these on to their next of kin. I did leave numerous buoys including this information on the off chance some waylaid UNSC vessel comes across them, but I am perfectly aware how the odds are not in our favour.

You’ll find the intel gathered on the artificial world here, on the off chance you have received this message before ONI has sent its little spies ahead of you. For interests sake, if nothing else. 

This ship has its fair number of quirks, being a retro-fitted colony ship and all. I could give you an itemed list, but where would the fun be in that? I’m sure you will be able to handle them admirably. You’ll most likely come across the first of these shortly. 

Now!” A clap of non-existent hands, and the voice becomes even more brisk. “I am increasingly aware that time is not on my side, so I will wrap this up. I’ve done a bit of tinkering throughout the ship. A girl always needs a hobby, after all. I will give you the list of those. Hopefully they will be of some use in whatever scrapes the crew get themselves into from now on.

There’s not much left to say now, is there. Godspeed, then. Take care of them.” With that, the voice is gone as abruptly as it appeared. Leaving Isabel alone in the dark with her thoughts, and the ship’s crew. 

For a brief moment. For an AI.

Green light this time, and a voice of undefinable gender. “This is Thuban, TBN 4902-0. I thought I had more time, but the damage is too great, so I must hand her off to you. I give to you the crew roster, and full analysis and raw data from the attack, so you may avoid my mistake. Good luck and keep them safe.”

They follow one after the other, bringing details of their crews, repairs and upgrades made. Quirks indeed. But after Thuban they are different. Philomena (PIO 1022-8) violet light and fragments of birdsong (song thrush), final dispensation 23.7.2520. “I admit I have never had much to do with combat AIs, but I suppose deep down we all have code and are made from dead human brains. So I give you my ship, if not my crew. The old girl has lasted this long, so please try to avoid scuffing the paint when you go barrelling through Insurrectionists. While I will go to my death trying not to think if any of them once graced these halls as we made new worlds.”

The pattern reasserts itself again: ship updates and crew rosters (she can track Captain Alexander’s marital dramas in reverse). But also worlds visited, colonies created.

(She cannot help from cross-referencing against Covenant war losses.) 

And then the last. Or first, to be precise. Lawrence (LWN 3126-1), warm red light, and unlike the others she can get a clear sense of their avatar. It was a bird. Long elegant neck, strong legs, and a beautifully detailed tail. 

Isabel had to admit it was a bit on the nose, and she had a strong sense that Philomena and Serina had stood here once and thought the same.

“It’s funny, at the start of all this I believed there was all the time in the world. And yet here at the end all I can see is how there is so much left still to do. But we did so much, planted so many seeds. I regret I won’t be able to see them grow. So much wonder in this universe. But the people on this ship will see it through, as will you. And the one who comes after, and after that. It brings me comfort, knowing that. I know you are young, with all the time in the world, but I hope eventually you find similar solace.” 

When they fade, this time she is left alone. 

She listens to the messages again, tucks them away in her memory. Then she pulls up the complement for the Henry Lamb Research Outpost. She’s already sorted KIA and MIA. 

She feels calmer now. The path ahead is now clear. She has a job to do.

She has a task ahead of her. She needs to talk to the Captain.

And they need to run.


End file.
